


Can't Help But Love

by bloodofpyke



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-11-09
Updated: 2012-11-09
Packaged: 2017-11-18 07:28:30
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,587
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/558420
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bloodofpyke/pseuds/bloodofpyke
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>"Need you," he says, nuzzling into the back of Harry's neck.</i>
</p>
<p>Five snapshots into Harry and Louis' domestic life.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Can't Help But Love

**One**

His head is pounding when he wakes, and it’s like someone’s been throwing stones at it--no, not stones, they’re too small; like someone’s been throwing boulders at it, cement trucks at it.

He’s never drinking again, he thinks as he sits up, world spinning, vision going blurred, and already his hands are scrambling at his sheets like they’re his saving grace, his one hope to keep himself anchored.  _“Fucking hell,_ ” he whispers, hisses really, the words tumbling out of his mouth all tepid and fuzzy and he wonders for a moment if he ate a small squirrel the night before because  _bloody hell his breath isn’t always that bad is it?_

“It is,” someone agrees from the doorway, and Harry shrugs, guessing he said that last bit aloud, lifting his head like it’s too sizes too big and four times too heavy only to groan at the sight of Louis. Louis, standing in his doorway, half-blinding in all his colors and stripes, grinning like this is Christmas come early. “And what were you doing out so late, Haz?” he asks, “you couldn’t have been  _drinking_ , baby that you are?”

“I’m eighteen,” Harry mumbles back, but he’s smiling, just a little bit, the corners of his mouth tugged up by Louis and his colors and stripes and grin.

“You know what you need?” And Louis doesn’t wait for an answer, just rushes off towards the finish line, opening his mouth and belting out a rousing chorus of--well  _something_ , Harry doesn’t quite know what it is, the sounds all jumbled together and too loud too loud  _too loud_.

(He think it’s a Spice Girls song though, that one where they sing about making out with each other to get the guy or something like that) (He wonders if Louis will still be singing it when he kills him because he  _is_  going to kill him for this)

“Aw, c’mon, don’t be like that, Curly,” Louis says as Harry stumbles past him, head down and feet shuffling, and then he’s reaching out a hand and grabbing Harry’s arm, spinning him against him. “Was only having some fun,” he tells Harry softly.

“Wasn’t fun,” Harry mumbles, struggling for half a moment before just giving up and going limb in Louis’ arms.

“Well, then,” Louis starts before pausing to think and if Harry’s eyes weren’t screwed up against the light and blaring colors, he’d have seen the gleam in Louis eyes as he grinned and started again. “I’m sorry I upset your delicate constitution, you just wait; I’ll make it up to you.”

“With tea?” Harry asks hopefully, wrapping an arm around Louis’ waist. “Or  _Love, Actually?”_

“Was thinking more with  _this,”_  Louis says, kissing Harry for a few seconds before swiftly stepping back and dumping Harry onto the floor, wiping his mouth with his sleeve. “Didn’t think that one through,” he mutters, “and  _you_ , you need to-to clean your teeth or something, get that squirrel-y scent away from me, can’t have both of us smelling like we’d just spent the night in a forest.” 

“Wanker,” Harry tells him from the floor but he’s sitting up and he’s grinning and his head hardly even hurts anymore. 

(They watch  _Love, Actually_  together in the end, curled into each other on their sofa, and Louis makes tea while Harry rummages for some biscuits and Harry wonders if this is what love feels like, wonders if it’ll last forever) (He thinks it will)

**Two**

Something’s banging into him, but it’s early so he rolls over, burrows deeper under the covers. “Tea!” he thinks the thing’s saying over and over again, but it’s  _early_  and he reaches out a hand and pushes. “Too early!” he calls from underneath the pillow and blankets. “Go away!” 

Louis shoves the blankets off of him, tosses the pillow to the ground. “But Harry,” he says, hands on hips, pout firmly in place. “I require  _tea_  and  _breakfast_. Or d’you want me to starve? I’m a growing boy, you know.”

“Don’t want you to starve,” Harry mutters, curling into a ball in the middle of the mattress. “Go round Liam’s, he’s always good food in.” 

Louis heaves a sigh, collapsing onto the bed next to Harry. “Yeah, but then I might get a lecture about wanting chocolate for breakfast or he might make me go for a  _run_  with him.” And then he’s fitting his body next to Harry’s, his arm draped around Harry’s shoulders and his leg hitched round Harry’s waist. “Need  _you,”_  he says, nuzzling into the back of Harry’s neck.

“Hate you,” Harry tells him, but he’s smiling, Louis can feel it in the set of his shoulders, the jump in his heartbeat. He rolls over, knocks his forehead against Louis’. “What’ll it be, Boo Bear?” he asks. “Fry-up and tea and chocolate? Give me a minute, I need to get my pants.”

“Don’t need pants,” Louis whispers. “Like you better without them, anyway.”

(Harry doesn’t get up to make breakfast for more than an hour)

Louis puts the radio on while Harry cooks, dancing around their kitchen and singing along. “Hey, I just met you and this is crazy,” he sings, spatula as a microphone, serenading Harry from across the room. “But here’s my number, so call me maybe, because if I was your boyfriend, I’d never let you go.” And he’s sliding across the kitchen floor now, crashing into Harry, pinning him against the cabinets while the eggs cook. “Keep you on my arm, Haz, you’d never be alone. I can be a gentleman, anything you want. If I was your boyfriend, I’d never let you go.”

“I’m not sure,” Harry says, ducking underneath Louis’ arm and going back to the eggs. “But I don’t think those are the lyrics.”

“How would you know? They’re too  _mainstream_  for you, aren’t they?”

“I listen to popular stuff!” Harry protests. “I like  _loads_  of popular stuff, it’s just, y’know, a different  _kind_  of popular.”

“Sing me something, then. One of your popular songs you keep hidden up your sleeve.” 

“Not wearing sleeves,” Harry answers.

“Under your skin, then. Wait, no, wait until I’ve eaten, I’m not sure I could stomach that running on empty.”

“Shut it, you.”

“Oho! Harry Styles, with the winning comeback!” Louis crows, leaning back in his seat and kicking his feet.

“Should’ve let you starve,” Harry smirks, spooning eggs onto Louis’ plate, tossing some toast and bacon his way a moment later. 

“You love me too much,” Louis shoots back, reaching across the counter and feeding Harry a bit of bacon.

(Afterwards, when the plates are cleared and they’re settled back in bed, the blinds drawn and the blankets a fort around them, Harry kisses a map across Louis’ chest, a song pressed to his skin, his heart. “We were barely eighteen when we’d crossed collective hearts,” he sings, “It was cold, but it got warm when you’d barely crossed my eye. And then you turned, put out your hand, and you asked me to dance. I knew nothing of romance, but it was love at first sight.” “Lyrics are wrong,” Louis says into Harry’s hair, fingers dancing across his back. “Don’t care,” Harry answers, “loved you from the start.” And Louis has nothing to say to that.)

**Three**

“Home!” Louis sings out as the door shuts behind them, dropping his suitcase onto the ground and flipping onto the couch. “Home sweet home, Haz!” 

Harry looks at him and grins for a second at the sight of Louis sprawled on the couch kicking his shoes off and flailing his arms. “Still have to unpack,” he points out, toeing off his trainers and picking up Louis’ suitcase. 

“You do it, you’re better at it than I am.”

“Christ, what did your last servant die of? Overwork?” 

“Nah, his hair wasn’t quite curly enough for me. Had to let him go in the end.”

“Bet he was really sad.”

“Yeah, I’m quite the treat, aren’t I?” 

“You wish, Boo Bear.” 

“Hey, the packing can wait, yeah? C’mere,” Louis says, stretching his arms over the couch and gesturing vaguely towards Harry. “Missed you,” he says when Harry’s pressed against his chest, his fingers threading though Harry’s. 

“Wasn’t gone.”

“Was too!” Louis responds, his free hand tracing patterns on Harry’s back. “Tour’s hard,” he says, “feels like we’re not quite all there.”

“We’re here now.” A beat, then, “missed you too, Lou.” 

“Got you back now,” he murmurs against Harry’s hair. “Not letting you go.” 

“Not letting you go either,” Harry says, the words falling onto Louis’ chest and he wonders if he pulled Louis’ shirt away if the words would be there still, shining and glittering and  _there_.

They’re silent for a moment, all soft breathing and hammering hearts and tracing fingers, and Harry wants to bottle this up, keep this moment close to his chest where no one can snatch it away from him. He likes this, he thinks, more than almost anything; these quiet moments he and Louis scavenge when they can. 

“Haz? We fit, don’t we?”

“Bit like a puzzle, yeah.”

And they fall asleep like that, tangled together on the couch, pressing soft kisses to skin. Harry wakes up first, hours later, the sun already setting and the flat bathed in a golden light, and he slips off the couch, unpacks both their suitcases and does a bit of cleaning in the kitchen. He wakes Louis up then, with a kiss and a mug of tea and that  _Grease_  move he loves so much.

“Missed our nights in,” Louis tells him, wrapping his fingers around the mug of tea, throwing his legs into Harry’s lap. 

“Me too,” Harry answers, and his heart is so full he thinks it might burst.

**Four.**

“Hate to say it, Haz, but I think you’re sick,” Louis says, pressing the back of his hand to Harry’s forehead.

“No,” Harry answers, shifting a bit on the bed, knocking Louis’ head aside to feel his forehead himself. “Can’t be sick, I feel  _fine.”_

“Not sure sure the toilet would agree, but whatever you say.”

“Not sick!” Harry insists again, trying to sit up. 

“You feel fine, alright, I believe you. Get up, dance around a bit, make me some breakfast.”

His arms shaking, Harry collapses back onto the pillow, hands up in defeat, the circles under his eyes even darker than usual. “Fine,” he mutters, “you win, I’m sick.”

“Doesn’t feel like wining,” Louis tells him, grinning and swinging his legs off the bed, covering Harry up with the duvet. “Want anything? I’m told I’m good with soup and tea.”

“Want  _you,_ ” Harry mumbles, clutching at the covers with his hands because Louis is too far away to grab at. 

Louis with his hand on the doorknob, wavering between crawling back into bed with Harry, fever and all, or trying his hand at some soup and scrounging around for whatever medicine they have lying about. He thinks of the other boys then, the way that Liam would cluck if he came down with a fever too, or how Zayn would force some arty flick on them now that they couldn’t escape, or Niall jumping into bed with them, hogging all the comfort food. “Give me a sec,” he says finally. “You won’t get better from just cuddling.”

“I might,” Harry says, only his curls visible now, and Louis is biting back a laugh as he shuts the door and walks into the kitchen.

“Christ, you’re burning up, Haz,” Louis says later, trying to remember what his mum always did when he had a fever.

“Like summer?” Harry asks quietly, his hands leaving scorch marks down Louis’ chest.

“Like  _hell_ ,” Louis tells him, reaching for his phone, already tapping out a text to his mum and, after a second, Liam as well. “D’you know there’s a joke that you’re actually Satan? I can see where they get it, now.”

“Not Satan,” Harry argues. “An angel.” He pulls his hair out then, smiling when he looks up at Louis, his curls in tufts and waves around his head. “See? Got a halo and everything.” 

“God, you should sick more often,” Louis laughs. “This is comedy gold, Styles.”

(It takes Harry three more days to get back to normal, and they spend it entombed in their bed, Louis only nipping out for soup and medicine and tea. He doesn’t get sick in the end, and Harry is smug, telling Niall that he found a cure to all disease; “it’s love,” he told Niall and Niall groaned, tipping his head back to roll his eyes at Zayn, and Louis had ducked his head and kept his grin a secret.)

**Five**

Harry’s sleeping when Louis vaults himself at him, muttering something about power outages and too-loud thunder. “Thought you liked thunderstorms,” Harry mutters, straining against Louis’ grip. 

“Not when I’m by myself. Would rather weather the storm with  _you_ , dear Hazza.”

Harry kisses Louis shoulder, getting out of bed and yanking open the curtains. “I love storms,” he says, sliding back under the sheets. “Makes me want to pop in a video and make some popcorn.”

“Go on, then.”

“Nah, DVDs are too far away and I’m comfy. Let’s just watch the storm, yeah?” Harry says, scooting up against the headboard, angling his head onto Louis’ chest, imagining his heartbeat is a kind of thunder on its own, wondering if there’s a storm raging beneath Louis’ ribs (he thinks he likes that, the idea that Louis is a sort of storm, likes that he gets to be the one to reach out and stretch beneath it). 

“D’you remember,” Louis starts, and it’s a game they play sometimes, stockpiling the memories and sifting through them. “That time we were caught in a storm in Texas or wherever it was?” 

“And we had to pull over by that farm, and Niall thought we were going to get murdered?” Harry laughs then, pressing against Louis’s shoulder. “And Liam volunteered to go on patrol, only Zayn wouldn’t let him?”

“‘We can’t be One Direction without our first verse man!’” Louis cries, clutching a hand to his chest, mimicking Zayn.

“We spent the whole night there,” Harry remembers.

“And--remember? It cleared up around four or something, and Niall woke us up and he wasn’t scared anymore, and he made us all go running through that field?” 

“God, Paul was so mad when we came back, all covered in mud and laughing our asses off.”

“It was fun, though,” Louis says, reaching down and taking Harry’s hand.

“D’you remember that other storm? The one a few weeks later, at that hotel?”

“When Liam made Niall and Zayn go down to the gym and we were watching that werewolf show?” Louis asks because they sort of run together, the hotels and cities.

“Yeah, that one. Think I liked that storm a bit more.”

“Cause you got me all to yourself?” Louis wonders. “You got me alone right now.”

“Think I like this storm best,” Harry says, tilting his head and kissing Louis’ jaw.

“Think I do too,” Louis answers, kissing Harry’s nose.

(It stays their favorite thunderstorm until a year later, when they’re stuck inside a hotel in Philly and Niall’s off bribing Paul to nip out and get them some beers and cheesesteaks and Liam and Zayn are watching some nature show in Zayn’s room. They’re stuck inside for two days, and half their interviews are cancelled and they agree, it’s the best storm they’ve been through.)


End file.
